How to Set Times for Socialising + Meetings
Having set boundaries between work and social time is incredibly important for us as small business owners.
No boundaries naturally exist, so we have to create them. No one is going to enforce certain work hours, or expect you to be at the office for a particular time. Many of us work from home and, even for those who don’t, the portable nature of technology makes it all too easy to plug back in and send ‘just one more email’ or ‘quickly finish that task.’
It’s a challenging line between wanting to take our businesses seriously and becoming workaholics. If we don’t take care of ourselves though and strike a balance, we run the risk of burnout, and who will run our businesses then? It’s exciting that we have the freedom to create the life we want, but having set work hours (even if they’re flexible) can make a huge difference to our wellbeing. As humans, we crave order. Yes – we may want to then play around within that – but we need the boundaries in order to get creative. Without those boundaries in place, it’s just anarchy.
I know it’s boring but you DO need a schedule.
I’ll explore this more fully in the next chapter, with LOTS of top tips on how to create one as a small business owner… but I did want to highlight this line between work and socialising. If you’re anything like me, then having so much flexibility in your life is part of what makes being an entrepreneur fun. You can meet a friend for lunch on a random Tuesday or go to the gym in the middle of the morning when it’s quietest. As Kenneth Grahame writes in ‘Wind in the Willows’: “After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”
To a certain extent, this is absolutely fine. Take advantage of the freedom that comes with being your own boss! Unfortunately, however, you can have too much of a good thing. The frustrating reality is that the same amount of work needs to be done, no matter how you juggle around the hours.
What I’ve come to realise is that, whilst it’s lovely to see a friend for lunch on Tuesday… it means I end up working on a Saturday. The more you do it, the more porous the space between work and your social life becomes. Yes, you get to do lots of fun social things but you can also end up feeling like you’re always working because there’s never enough time to fully switch off. I hate to admit it, but there really is something to be said for a weekend. Not necessarily Saturday and Sunday of course, but two or three distinct leisure days, with a proper work schedule built around it.
This is where it pays to have thought through when you’ll start and stop working. You get to make an active choice about how this looks, rather than accepting passively what someone else dictates. The idea that the majority of jobs can be done between the hours of 9am – 5pm is absurd. It’s performative and is taking our human love of order too far. Obviously, some jobs (and some people!) will require less or more than that. How many hours a week is needed for your business to thrive?
How many hours do you want to split that over and on which days? The rest is leisure time to do pursue your other passions! YOU get to choose…but you do need to consciously make that choice and maintain it.
MY ACTION PLAN:
- Set clearly defined days of the week and times for work and leisure activities.
- Remember, it’s completely fine to play around with this! It’s your life and if you want to go for that lunch on a Tuesday then go for it… just remember to play with your schedule ahead of time, so you know when everything will get done. This enables you to fully relax, knowing that things are taken care of.
